


bedside manner

by mouseymightymarvellous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And They All Lived Happily In Avengers Tower The End, F/M, Pre-Relationship, crosspost, dubious medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 17:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20660666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseymightymarvellous/pseuds/mouseymightymarvellous
Summary: Darcy doesn't need any more science credits, and even if she did, "Winter Soldier's Preferred Nurse" probably wouldn't make it past SHIELD's screening process or fulfill Culver's science requirements.It's a good thing she doesn't mind being here, then, because there's no escaping this life now.(Bucky smiles at her when she's tucked close, changing a bandage on his shoulder, chaos of the Avenger type descending around them, and she thinks that maybe this isn't so bad.)





	bedside manner

**Author's Note:**

> This was written some two years ago in response to a [The Way You Said "I Love You"](https://mouseymightymarvellous.tumblr.com/post/159962768884/the-way-you-said-i-love-you) prompt. Set in some ambiguous time post-CAWS, ignoring absolutely everything else that followed.

If Darcy were ever to actually try to get a job outside of the crazy world of superheroes she accidentally fell into all those years ago, rushing through the New Mexico desert in search of spectacular weather phenomena and six science credits, she’s really not sure how she’d explain the breadth of—to put it frankly—bizarre shit on her CV.

Well, like, if pretty much all of it wasn’t classified Super Absolutely Top Secret, Yes That Means You. Or whatever it’s actually called. (Darcy isn’t even sure that s_he_ has the clearance to read some of the things on her CV. (Actually, she _knows_ there are things she doesn’t have clearance for. Tony sometimes gives her things to do that she only later finds out she really wasn’t supposed to do when she’s back to staring at Maria Hill from across a metal table and the woman is clicking a pen ominously, like _Men In Black_ might have actually been right and the section of the government that deals with aliens really does have the technology to wipe your memory.))

So, yeah. Darcy’s tazed a god, forged DMV documents, evacuated a town under attack by what she’s still pretty sure was Asgard’s steampunk answer to Balrogs, followed a mad scientist across the globe, hacked SHIELD, ran through the streets of London to stab science sticks in the ground to stop planes of reality from colliding, and been up close and personal with Thor’s biceps.

And that’s just from before Tony Stark decided that his ongoing need to one-up SHIELD after they didn’t want to have a playdate with him meant that he should show up on their doorstep in London (well, Jane’s mom’s doorstep) and inform Jane that he had a lab for her, Darcy’s student loans were paid off, and the jet would be taking off in an hour, don’t worry about your stuff, it’s all junk anyways but, ow Foster, I’m sensitive to glares, Pepper arranged for someone to ensure it all made it safely to New York.

Post-life at Stark Tower, Darcy’s CV has gotten even stranger.

Which is why she’s currently standing at the Winter Soldier’s bedside and changing an IV bag, Dr Banner and CAPTAIN AMERICA hovering on the other side of the room.

Darcy is not a nurse, but happen to be walking through the hallway outside of the Avengers’ medical centre _one time_, and you might find yourself here, the Winter Soldier’s preferred health practitioner.

CAPTAIN AMERICA still owes her so many cupcakes for the four week intensive medical course she had to take once this became one of her many assorted duties.

“I’m not going to kill him,” Darcy tells CAPTAIN AMERICA. “Like, trust me, dude. I’ve got this IV thing down. Ask me to do surgery and I’ll balk, but, I mean, I can probably handle up to stitches and fixing a dislocated joint.”

CAPTAIN AMERICA winces faintly. “Sorry, Miss Lewis, I’m not worried about you.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Like I’ve said, Darcy’s fine, Lewis if you really can’t bring yourself to be so informal. And I’m not worried about him, so you shouldn’t be either.”

When CAPTAIN AMERICA—okay, no, it was Steve Rogers at the time—had dragged the jagged ghost of his best friend home, the entire Tower had been on edge. And rightly so. Bucky Barns had been more sharp edges and the half-forgotten memory of blood than the boy who died on a mountain, decades before. But he also hadn't been so much the Winter Soldier either, he was too broken for that. He was just feral and all the more dangerous for it.

Darcy had been aware, in the back of her mind—about the same place she considered the ongoing developments in celebrity marriages—that Bucky Barnes was somewhere in the building. But the only real effect it had had on her was the ensuing change in emergency procedure, and those were normal anyways, what with disasters like the fall of SHIELD being offensively regular occurrences. It took almost a year after catching Tony obsessively re-watching the footage of Steve Rogers walking into the completely shut down Tower lobby, a dark shadow skulking at his heels, one with hunched shoulders and too long hair and something terrified about the eyes, for the Winter Soldier to emerge for his first mission alongside the Avengers.

And then he was just a person at the edge of her periphery, appearing as a figure in Thor’s stories or in the guns spread across a bench in Tony’s workshop or as a shaky blur in news footage. Darcy didn’t have much to do with the Avengers, other than Thor, of course, and Tony, who pops in and out of the lab and occasionally “borrows” Darcy for everything from “hold this thing steady while I weld because DUM-E is in timeout” to “Lewis, we’re going to Vegas for a thing because apparently I need an adult and you’re it; Pepper is forwarding you the itinerary”.

That changed, of course (and Darcy still isn’t exactly sure what she thinks of that), when one day Darcy just popped up to replace their lab first aid kit (Jane having taken the bandages to repair a machine (Darcy didn't want to know and still doesn't) and forgotten to replace them, just in time for Darcy to slice her finger open with a piece of paper), when an alarmingly bloodied pile of Avengers stumbled down from the quinjet landing pad, and right into her.

Twenty-seven minutes of following frantic orders from the limited medical staff in need of more hands, and Darcy found herself awkwardly avoiding CAPTAIN AMERICA’s eyes as she helped a nurse stitch up a particularly brutal gash along the inside of his thigh.

The Winter Soldier spent the entire time perched watchfully in a corner, nursing his own injuries and refusing medical attention.

Except, apparently, Darcy’s, because when she nodded briskly to CAPTAIN AMERICA and went to wash her hands, the Winter Soldier gestured her over and got her to pick out the shrapnel embedded in his shoulder.

Darcy didn’t know this was a Rare and Unusual situation until she noticed the wide-eyed medical staff, the Black Widow’s carefully careless sprawl against Hawkeye’s legs, and the startled exchange between CAPTAIN AMERICA and the Falcon. But Darcy is a champ at ignoring meaningful glances (it’s how she survives family dinners) and so she’d just doubled down on picking out the smallest fragment of metal.

When she was done, the head doctor thanked her for her help, the Avengers nodded at her, and Darcy had left.

And that was the end of that, she'd thought.

(If Darcy had kept the memory of the large, warm breadth of Bucky Barnes under her hands and of the slightest suggestion of a smile tugging at his lips at her murmured cursing, well. It’s no one’s business but her own. And maybe a very drunk Jane’s.)

Except, apparently, that _wasn’t_ the end of that, because Darcy is so in over her head in her crazy life that she’s forgotten which way was ever up, and, according to CAPTAIN AMERICA, that makes her the perfect blend of capable but non-threatening that she fails to trip the Winter Soldier’s rightful paranoia concerning anyone in a lab coat or a suit.

Which is why Darcy is here, months and something that might almost be a friendship later, during her well-deserved lunch break (it is in no way lunch, but Jane’s been on a roll for the past four days and time has become relative), shooting the Winter Soldier up with a specially synthesized painkiller capable of withstanding his enhanced metabolism.

“He’s going to be fine, Dr Banner’s run, like, a billion tests on this new painkiller,” Darcy reassures. “This won’t be like the last time.”

CAPTAIN AMERICA and Dr Banner both wince.

Darcy rolls her eyes. Yeah, the last time didn’t go so well, but it’s not like she was hurt or anything.

Okay, like, her pride, maybe, at the frankly embarrassing shriek she let out when a drugged and disoriented Winter Soldier launched off the hospital bed. And her back was a little bruised from where he’d pushed her into a corner. But he wasn’t _trying_ to hurt her.

If he’d been trying, Darcy would have been dead before CAPTAIN AMERICA or the Black Widow could have crossed the room.

He’d been trying to save her.

Admittedly, he’d been trying to save her from CAPTAIN AMERICA’s obnoxious ringtone (the Falcon owes her cupcakes too, for that), but his instinct had been to _protect_.

Regardless, there’d been a lot of yelling in another room when, after almost two hours, they’d finally coaxed Barnes (he’d been less the Soldier by then) into believing they were safe.

Needless to say, Dr Banner had worked out a new painkiller. And they’d done a lot more testing this time around before administering it.

“Stop worryin’, punk,” Barnes slurs. “‘M not gonna bite the pretty dame. Not unless she asks me too.”

Darcy startles, and her hip bumps the side table.

They all watch in horror as the glass of water there tumbles off the edge and crashes on the floor.

Darcy turns to glance at Barnes, who looks as wide-eyed as she feels. But he isn’t panicking, which is good. No Winter Soldier startle reflex kicking in.

Then Darcy remembers the glass on the floor.

“Mother fucking shit,” she spits.

It’s gone everywhere.

Then her head whips up to stare at CAPTAIN AMERICA, in front of whom she just swore.

But he’s still staring at Barnes, all startled, a smile blooming on his face.

Darcy doesn’t know what to do with the way they look like the boys they must have once been, Barnes’ eyes hooded and sly, Rogers masking mirth with scandalized affront.

For a moment, the long years and grief slough off of them, and they’re the most heartbreaking thing Darcy has ever seen.

She crouches down, and starts cleaning up glass.

“You should probably at least ask her out on a date first, Buck,” Rogers teases.

Darcy swears again, this time because she’s sliced herself with a piece of glass. “Ow,” she hisses, and sucks her finger into her mouth.

“Right!” Barnes declares. “Lewis, sweetheart, wanna go dancing?”

Darcy smacks her head on the bed as she whips it up to look at him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

She drops down to sit on the ground.

Barnes leans over the bed to stare at her, worry creasing his brow.

She wants to smooth it away with her touch.

“You okay down there, Lewis?”

“‘M fine,” Darcy mumbles around the finger in her mouth, her other hand rubbing the top of her head. “Just kill me now.”

Barnes blinks, bemused.

And, wow, Darcy thanks Dr Banner’s painkillers, because that could have gone over much worse.

“Ugh.” She stands up. “Are you okay? How are you feeling? I know Dr Banner wanted to do some tests to see how the painkiller is metabolizing.”

Barnes makes a face.

Darcy really needs to put an end to her fascination with watching his mouth move.

“I don’t like tests,” he whines.

Darcy swallows down a laugh. He sound like her nephew. “Yeah, well, be a good boy and I’ll get you a lollipop."

Barnes makes another face.

It’s a good face.

A really good face: all sparkle in his eyes and mirth on his mouth, all smug confidence.

He looks her up and down. It feels like a caress.

Darcy adamantly does not shiver.

“Can I choose the colour?” he asks.

And licks his fucking lips.

The bastard.

“Sure,” Darcy manages from around the hitch in her lungs.

Barnes smiles. “How ‘bout red?”

Darcy blinks. Then looks down at her shirt.

“So, I’m going to get that lollipop. Dr Banner, he’s all yours.”

Darcy likes to think of her exit as graceful and not a desperately embarrassed flight.

She pulls at the hem of her red shirt on the elevator ride down to the lab, and refuses to blush.

“Steve,” Bucky declares as Darcy flees the room.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I’m going to marry that woman.”

Steve laughs and crosses the room to stand at Bucky’s bedside, glass crunching under his feet.

“Bit early to say, don’t you think?”

“Nah,” Bucky insists, his face young and smiling. “I’m gonna fall in love with her and marry her. Just you wait and see.”

Steve thinks of the man Bucky was before the war, before everything, and the way his eyes caught on mothers and fathers with kids swinging in their grips, the way all Bucky ever wanted was survive the war and go home to Brooklyn and marry one of those girls he took out on the town.

That Bucky laughed so easily and loved even easier, spilling over with it.

Steve hasn’t seen that Bucky in so long.

But right here, in this glass-covered room in a Tower, so long and far from where they started (and from where Steve thought they’d ended), right here is an after-image of that man.

Steve stares at the door where Darcy Lewis has left.

No, he thinks, not too early at all.


End file.
